Talk:The Many Lives of Doctor Who

Significant merger

Despite receiving individual titles these stories were never intended to be individuals and were all part of the same narrative as The Many Lives of Doctor Who (comic story). DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 22:14, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

I realise my initial post was vague, I'll elaborate.

The Man Lives of Doctor Who is one single narrative which takes place during the 12th Doctor's regeneration into the 13th. Throughout the story the Doctor looks back into their past and revisits adventures where the central theme was change. These cutaways were all given individual titles; The Path of Skulls, Card Conundrum, etc, but were not individual stories.

It can be determined that this was a single narrative due to;

A) None of the stories finish with "The End" (which to my knowledge Titan Comics always does - or at least some variation - at the end of their stories) nor do they have "To be continued". This is literally one single narrative that plays out over multiple different adventures throughout the Doctors lives and the individual titles is no different than Doctor Who and the Iron Legion having The Iron Legion, Into the Dimension Duct, etc. They are chapter titles not individual story titles.

B) Each chapter has a continuous narration that speaks in the past tense directly to the Thirteenth Doctor.

C) The artists who designed individual chapters are not credited for having provided the art per story, instead they are credited per Doctor, which shows that this release was not thought of as being multiple individual stories.

I do not think that it would take anything away from the site by merging all these stories together. That is how they were clearly supposed to be intended. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 23:17, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone have anything to add on this subject? DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 22:00, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I'll concede that it could easily go both ways, but my vote would be for keeping it as-is. The segments do all have separate titles and artists, and, aside from the linking narration, each segment is narratively distinct, with no narrative elements connecting the segments other than that they are what the Doctor is remembering while regenerating. In my mind, this seems more akin to the prose Short Trips that have linking stories rather than to a single story. Schreibenheimer ☎ 14:52, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree, although this is a tricky one and I'd be happy to hear more views. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 23:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Who are you agreeing with @Scrooge? DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 01:42, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I have found what I believe to be the closest comparison, DWM's The Time of My Life has the Doctor remembering multiple different adventures between himself an Donna. Each short segment has a different art style albeit no chapter heading. As I mentioned before Titan Comics seem to always put "The End" (or some alternate) at the end of their stories no matter how short. None of these "individual stories" received that treatment but the very end of the entire story did.DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 09:55, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

I vehemently disagree with merging. The Many Lives of Doctor Who is a spiritual successor to Prisoners of Time. This wiki decided the best way to cover POT was to give each issue a separate article, even though the story titles were referred to as chapters and were only established in collected editions. (See also our coverage of The Incomplete Death's Head.) The most clear and convenient way to cover The Many Lives of Doctor Who is to give each vignette a separate article because they are all functionally separate comic stories.

Furthermore, one synopsis reads (emphasis mine):[1]

An introduction to the brand new thirteenth Doctor, featuring multiple stories of previous incarnations of the Doctor.

LegoK9 ☎ 18:33, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

I disagree that the art styles between vignettes in that example differ, but, even if they did, they all have the same artist, so I don't feel that's a very close comparison at all, personally. Schreibenheimer ☎ 00:31, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

The art styles are intentionally different in that story (most notably in the classroom story with the Doctor/Donna presented in a more cartoon style). DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 16:47, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm in favor of merging the pages for the reasons Corrie has given. – n8 (☎) 16:55, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks.

Can I also point out that currently on The Many Lives of Doctor Who page the references section already includes the narrative-linking comments that occur in the "individual stories". For example; "* The Doctor recalls that, in his second incarnation, the Time Lords eventually caught up to him, (TV: The War Games) forced him to regenerate (COMIC: The Night Walkers) and stranded him on Earth. (TV: Spearhead from Space)" - this reference occurs in what would be Card Conundrum if they were counted individually. DrWHOCorrieFan ☎ 17:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I've added merge tags to the other stories which are part of The Many Lives of Doctor Who but didn't have the merge tag present. And I've placed a link to this discussion on all the merge tags for those stories just so anyone's clear where the merge discussion is taking place. --Tangerineduel / talk 04:46, 11 February 2023 (UTC)

Last year I said I was in favor of merging the pages, but I've done more thinking on our broader coverage of multi-story stories, so to speak, and I think our black-and-white, "all-in" or "all-apart" approach really breaks down in cases like these. LegoK9 brought up Prisoners of Time as a comparable case, and there we very clearly materially benefit from separate coverage of the parts. So I reverse my vote. – n8 (☎) 15:24, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Having read through this story again, I think this is more so a case of an anthology work with some interlinking structure.

All the separate stories have separate narratives, without any reference to the The Many Lives of Doctor Who (comic story) framing narrative, which is there framing itself against these stories.

I think they should remain separate. —Tangerineduel / talk 14:12, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Further to this I'd suggest the stories remain separate as there are examples of anthology with interlinking material already covered Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Dead Men Diaries (anthology) has the main stories, with interlinking material throughout the anthology, which like this provides commentary and info on those stories. --Tangerineduel / talk 06:03, 6 February 2024 (UTC)